Fuji Rock '26: ROUTE 17 and a Roosters Reunion 12 Years On

I made it to Fuji Rock for a single day again this year, the fourth year running. Money being what it is, I honestly thought this would be the year I skipped it, and then I looked up and I was in Echigo-Yuzawa, at Naeba. There was one act I couldn't talk myself out of, and you can only see it here.

 

What is ROUTE 17 Rock'n'Roll ORCHESTRA?

The Green Stage is the biggest main stage at Fuji Rock, and this is the set that happens there every year.

The band takes its name from National Route 17, the highway that runs through Naeba. It's a special band born out of the festival itself, built around Naeba Ongaku Totsugekitai (the Naeba Music Assault Squad), led by The Roosters' Junji Ikehata.

Around him is a roll call of Japanese rock 'n' roll: Hiroyuki Hanada, also of The Roosters, plus Kazuhide Yamaji (dip), Uo Hosomi, Kazutoki Umezu and more. Ikehata, for what it's worth, apparently pitches in with the build as well, laying the boardwalk beside the Green Stage and putting up flags around the site. He's 67.

Each year the set brings in guest vocalists, and this year's line-up was even more loaded than usual: Tortoise Matsumoto of Ulfuls, Kenichi Asai (ex-BLANKEY JET CITY), Hiroto Komoto (The Cro-Magnons, THE HIGH-LOWS, THE BLUE HEARTS), and The Roosters' Shinya Oe. Three legends in one place is already a lot. Then you add Shinya Oe.

 

Who are The Roosters?

From the late 1970s into the 1980s, a rock 'n' roll scene took hold in Fukuoka that came to be known as "mentai rock", after the spicy cod roe the city is famous for. The Roosters were the band that led it.

Musically it's rock 'n' roll built on British rock 'n' roll, blues rock and punk. The movement fed a little into the Japanese band boom that followed right after it, and THE BLUE HEARTS are one of the bands that came out of that. Yusuke Chiba of THEE MICHELLE GUN ELEPHANT named The Roosters as a favourite, too, and you can hear mentai rock all over Michelle's music.

Back to Shinya Oe. He had been unwell in various ways for a long time, and during The Roosters' active years his mental health gave out and he left the band. He supported himself with part-time work after that, then came back to the music scene in the 2000s, playing rarely and mostly around his home town of Fukuoka. Last year he also disclosed that he had suffered a stroke. Catching him in Tokyo takes real timing, and here he was coming to Fuji Rock.

Then I looked further down the list of players and got another shock: Tomio Inoue on bass. That meant all four Roosters would be on the same stage. Four Roosters playing live together, for the first time in 12 years. The last time was at Fuji Rock too.

That settled it. I was going.

First up: Tortoise Matsumoto of Ulfuls

He's a regular at this thing. Every year Tortoise Matsumoto brings that soulful voice to this stage. In Japan, Ulfuls had a huge hit with "Guts daze!!", and "Banzai ~Suki de Yokatta~" is still a wedding standard. Both are rock 'n' roll built on soul music, and they sound great. Soul runs deep in Matsumoto's roots.

He opened with two soul covers again this time: MARVIN GAYE, "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" OTIS REDDING, "Hard to Handle"

I don't know soul well myself, and when the songs started I couldn't tell you who wrote them or what they were. But hearing Matsumoto sing them in that spot was fantastic, and the way he twists his body while he sings is pure soul singer. If you don't know it, this is as good a place as any to start.

He finished with a Roosters cover: "SITTING ON THE FENCE"!

I hadn't expected a cover at all, let alone that one.

"Sitting on the fence under a bright sky, wondering what I'll do next." "Feels like I've been sitting here a very long time."

Being a boy means a certain physical freedom and, at the same time, the emotional unfreedom of having nowhere to go. The song puts what youth actually is into very few words. That restlessness and Matsumoto's loose-limbed delivery suit each other, somehow. Just getting to hear it live made me happy. Thank you, Tortoise Matsumoto.

Next: Kenichi Asai of BLANKEY JET CITY

Kenichi Asai standing on the Green Stage at Fuji Rock carries weight, because this is where BLANKEY JET CITY, the band that defined an era for him, played their final show. Even now, when I come across footage of that last gig, all three of them are razor-sharp and ready to kill, and it gets me going.

He opened with JUDE's "Shirubetto". JUDE is the band Asai formed after BLANKEY JET CITY broke up, and Ikehata was the drummer. Two members of that band playing a JUDE song together after all this time is exactly the kind of thing only ROUTE 17 delivers. It reminds you that Japanese rock from the 1980s to the 2000s is one continuous line. "Shirubetto" carries a fragility and a purity that only Benzie (Kenichi Asai) can produce, and it took the whole field with it in one go.

The second song was Sheena & The Rokkets' "Lazy Crazy Blues".

Another cornerstone of mentai rock. Both Sheena and Makoto Ayukawa have passed away now, but here was the song being carried on and sung by their old comrades and by the children of Japanese rock. A beautiful thing to watch.

And he closed with Blankey at their most Blankey: "Gasoline no Yurekata" (the way the gasoline sways). Asai had his own set on day three, so everyone assumed he wouldn't touch the Blankey material. Then here it came. Hearing that song, the one they played on the day they broke up, on the Green Stage meant a great deal. The crowd knew it from a single guitar riff and went off.

After Benzie left the stage, Ikehata rolled out a snare figure like distant thunder. Arms and legs flailing, out came Hiroto Komoto.

Hiroto Komoto, and the words he chose

He tore around the stage in every direction. The song hadn't even started and he could already whip the crowd up as much as he liked, just by showing up. A genuine Japanese legend.

The sense that something was about to happen turned out to be right: the band launched into the urgent beat of The Roosters' "Shingata Cedric".

Hiroto Komoto covering a Japanese artist is rare. The ones I can remember are Kiyoshiro Imawano, Sheena & The Rokkets and Yusuke Chiba, and that's about it. (There may be a few more, but the occasions are few.)

I glanced to the side and there was Tomio Inoue, casually in place, playing bass. Hiroto singing a Roosters song with three of the original Roosters behind him. That is an outrageous thing to be watching.

Once he'd got the crowd fully going, he said this:

"Today I had one more reason than usual to be here. It was to see Harashima."

Here's the background. The reason this year's line-up was so loaded is that Smiley Harashima, who had been the MC for the Green Stage for the entire Naeba era of the festival, died suddenly earlier this year. He was the gravel-voiced man who was always there when you went to Fuji Rock. He, too, came out of the mentai rock lineage, as the driving force in a band called THE ACCIDENTS. That band never sold the way The Roosters or Sheena & The Rokkets did, and they broke up without much notice. Afterwards, Harashima worked mainly as a radio DJ, and one of those jobs was MCing Fuji Rock. This set was, among other things, a memorial for him.

Hiroto went on.

"From the first moment I met him, he was always Harashima. He never changed."

On its own that sounds like any eulogy. But then he added:

"He couldn't change." "I'm the same. I can't change. People who love rock 'n' roll can't change." "Let's go and enjoy this year with Harashima too!"

Everything people mean when they call Hiroto Komoto a legend is concentrated right there. Warm towards people without being overbearing, and in a handful of plain words he gets all of it across at once: who Smiley was, what he himself felt, and what the crowd was feeling.

"And the truly great Shinya Oe is here today. Ah, I'm so nervous I can't stand it. We'll do one more in front of a man like that. 'Rosie'! YEAH!"

Respect paid to Shinya Oe, then one more Roosters song: "Rosie". A great two-tone rock 'n' roll number out of ska. Hearing this line-up play it is, again, remarkable.

Shinya Oe walks out, and The Roosters are complete

Before he even appeared, the crowd was calling for him. Oe! Then Shinya Oe came out and picked up a guitar. The original Roosters were finally all in one place.

The first song, of course, was "Tequila"!

Oe's guitar tone is all jagged edges and it sounds great. The force of the band was on another level.

Second was "LET'S ROCK (Dan Dan)", the opening number on INSANE, the last album Oe played on. "Dan Dan Dan Dan Dan Dan" came back from the whole field. His vocals are hard to make out, and there's plenty he can't sing cleanly any more, and that's fine. The fact that Oe is singing at all matters enormously. As long as he leads with that raw guitar tone, the crowd will follow.

The only words Oe spoke were a eulogy for Harashima, which he took out on a piece of paper he'd written beforehand and read aloud. Two weeks earlier I'd seen him in Tokyo on a bill with The 50 Kaitenz, where he talked normally and seemed playful, so I think the estimated crowd of just under 30,000 at the Green Stage had him nervous.

As if to confirm it, he kept turning to face Kazuhide Yamaji (dip), who has been playing in his band lately, and playing towards him during the songs. My guess is he wanted to take the edge off.

Then came another uneasy intro, and "C.M.C."! A personal favourite.

The whole crowd sang the chorus. Getting to shout "C.M.C.! C.M.C.! SUMMER DAY! SUMMER BEACH! SUMMER SUN!" outdoors in the middle of summer felt great.

The finale: everyone on "Going Up The Country"

To close the set, Tortoise Matsumoto, Kenichi Asai and Hiroto Komoto were all called back out. The last song was "Going Up The Country", the theme song Kiyoshiro Imawano left to Fuji Rock. Apparently this was the first time it had been played live.

Imawano was a singer with his own quirks, so hearing these four sing along to one of his songs was musically interesting in itself. The closest fit was Hiroto Komoto, who you could fairly call one of Imawano's children; his voice came through far more clearly than anyone else's. Kenichi Asai's natural key is so far from the song that it was never going to work, and that was funny in its own way. It's proof that even on the same rock 'n' roll road, each of them was climbing a different mountain. Each reached the top of Japanese rock with his own particular qualities, and you could see it plainly.

At the same time, a Fuji Rock that opens with the theme song was a fine thing. I'd be happy to see it become an annual fixture.

At the end of the song, Hiroto tried to get Oe to take the final hit and Oe couldn't quite manage it, which was its own bit of mischief. When Hiroto is on stage with someone he admires, you see a side of him you don't usually get.

Oe headed off without joining the closing line-up bow. I don't know whether that's just how he is, but I felt the nerves and the pressure had been real for him.

It was only an hour on stage, but it was a brilliant one, with Japanese rock packed into it as densely as it comes.